Jackson’s birthday is strange this year. It’s not like the previous years have been. For one thing, I feel so busy. Not quite too busy to remember, but too busy to fixate, that’s for sure. Evie’s birthday had us all in an uproar, as did our trip to Elko. Today, consequently, is all about getting back to real life. Harry going back to school, Kile going back to work, me and the little ones getting back to our routine.
I would have liked to have visited the cemetary today, but I don’t think I’ll be able to manage. Sure, I could pack up the kids and drive down to get Kile and we could all go over. But I don’t want to overextend myself either and I’ll have to be packing them up tomorrow to take them (by myself!) to Evie’s pediatrician appointment. But Kile has said that he will visit and bring him some flowers.
This morning, when I reminded Harry whose birthday it was today and how old he would have been, he replied, “He could have been my friend. We could have played together.” Yep, he sure could. Harry and Jackson would have been much closer in age and I think they would have had a great time together. As much fun as he has with Liam, I think Harry would have had a buddy in Jackson. I’m sorry he never got that chance.
I don’t have much to say this year. I don’t know what to say. The fact that it has been five years blows me away. Jack would have been going to kindergarten this summer. He wouldn’t have been a baby anymore. He would have been a full-fledged little boy. Would he have been ornery like Liam? Calm like Harry and Evie? Would he have been into trucks and trains or superheros and video games? So many unanswered questions.
On this, the fifth anniversary of his birth and death, I wanted to highlight all the posts I have written for Jackson over the years. I’ll start with last year and work backwards:
Each post, each year, is a snapshot in time. How we were grieving, how we were living with Jackson, how we were coping and moving forward and living our lives. I didn’t write a letter this year. Maybe I will and just tuck it back somewhere that only I can see it. Either way, he will be remembered. Not a year, not a day, will go by without him being remembered.
Happy Birthday, Jackson.
Nope, you’re not seeing things. My YNTR list is back this week! And, bonus for you, it includes two weeks of linky goodness. I still maintain that I may not be doing this list every week. But I will when I can and when it’s not going to cause me an undue amount of grief to put it together. And, as it would happen, this week the grief has not been caused. It’s a mellow Saturday morning around these parts, Liam is watching “Ratatouille” on cable and Kile is snoring in his recliner. All is right with the world.
This first post is something I could relate to. Should I go Mac and never come back? from Mandajuice is much like a similar post I wrote not that long ago. And, just like myself, she finds herself wooed by the seductive iPhone and repelled by a crappy PC. I’ll be interested to see what she picks, especially since I’m 99.9% sure I’m going to get a MacBook when the time comes.
And in the “Long-Awaited” category, we have Ezra from amalah . com. I literally felt my heart swell when I saw this sweet picture and the details on the birth. She is officially the mom of two boys! I can’t wait to see how the weeks and months ahead are for her and her family. Congratulations, Storchs!
I can DEFINITELY relate to The Hot Fuss™* and Me from temporarily me. In fact, I may have thought these very words myself on more than one occasion in the last week or so. Or the last month or so. Or the last six months or so. Sometimes, a bad mood just gets ahold of you and you can’t shake it. And sometimes, your kid wants to be superglued to your side. And when the two meet? Well… that’s when you get a post like this.
And I know you’re probably sick of me talking about it already, but Her New Hobby from Confessions of a Pioneer Woman made me cackle a little bit because The Power of the iPhone can grip ANYBODY, even housewives who live out in the country. And the text messages from her daughter were just too darned funny. I think someone likes “Napoleon Dynamite”!
On the flip side, we have My Grandpa: October 5, 1921- October 14, 2008 from Joy Unexpected. This was a touching and sad post about her grandfather who passed away this last week. It’s been a long time since all of my grandparents passed, but I could keenly feel her loss through her words. I hope she finds peace, now that her grandfather has found his. My sympathies to her and her family.
Being a Reno citizen as well, I can appreciate Fall Where? from EmilyPie. I love her summation of the season here in our town, and how schizophrenic they often tend to be. However, I do disagree with her assessment of summer and the need for air conditioning (I am sure I would perish without it). I love winter, always have, always will. But yes. Fall is like a week long around here. I could do with some more fall, to be honest.
This post gets filed under the “ZOMG” category. ZOMG! Twilight Soundtrack Playlist Just Released! from MamaPop shares with us the fantabulous news of the new “Twilight” movie soundtrack. Can you believe I already have some of these songs on my iTunes? BEFORE this list was released? Oh, I’m a hardcore fan, ya’ll. And you can bet I’ll have the rest of these songs when the soundtrack is released. I cannot WAIT to hear the one recorded by Robert Pattinson.
Enough is Enough from Queen of Spain Blog is a post about the turn in tone the political race has taken lately. And I wish I could say in the intervening days since she first posted this that the voices of hate have toned down but I really don’t think they have. I think they may have gotten worse. But I definitely share her feelings and hope that people settle the heck down. And lets find some decency in all of this, please? Aren’t we better than this? Please tell me that we are.
Lastly, we have My Husband is Not My Keeper, also from temporarily me. This spoke to me because I have often had these very same feelings. Being a stay at home mom, and not having any of my own income, I often feel like my voice is dimmed somewhat. I think that’s pretty common. And it’s as much my fault as any one else’s. But all the time, this is an impassioned, important post. You should all read it.
So there we go. Another week’s list in the hopper. This should be enough to keep you out of trouble this weekend. As for me, we have a baby costume to find and a pumpkin to pick out (nope, we don’t have that yet either). Should be fun! Happy Weekend, ya’ll.
If you’ve been eyeballing my Twitter, you know that Evie is here! But first things first. We got to the hospital at the bell toll of 10:00am and got set up right away in our “holding room”. I call it that because it’s the room right next to the doors to the operating room and it’s the same room I had to sit and wait in when Liam was born. We watched some really strange things on TV, including a program that included time-lapse photography of a decomposing cow. It was way wrong. But it kept us busy.
Lucky us though, we got in right on time. I was taken back to the OR five minutes past noon. I won’t detail anything here (I’ll leave that for my birth story post!). Needless to say, Evie made her arrival into the world at 12:29pm, weighing a grand total of 6 pounds and 8 and a half ounces. So this means that Violet won the “What Will She Weigh” contest! Violet, shoot me an email at callistawolf AT gmail DOT com and I’ll get your addy so I can send you a little somethin’. Though Southernbelle gets an honorable mention for getting the closest guess in on her time of birth. Way to go guys! And thanks to EVERYONE for putting in guesses. It was SO fun to read them while I was busy freaking out about having a baby. Heh.
I’m beat. I’ve got lots of stories to share with you all. I’ll leave it at that for now. In the meantime, it looks as if I WILL get to watch “LOST” tonight. Woo hoo!
She is absolutely adorable. I mean, don’t take my word for it. Take a look for yourselves…
The cute is threatening to eat us all.
Making faces already
I dare say she’s razzing us
Harry is already in love
Mutual admiration society starring Kile’s mom and Harry
Liam surprised us by being so interested in her. He even tried to give her a kiss. Unprovoked!
Okay folks. This is it. We’re counting down HOURS here. The end is nigh. The beginning is imminent. Life, as we know it, will be turned on it’s ear. Are you scared yet? No? Cuz I am. Heh. Seriously though. Very excited. Very nervous. I can’t keep a thought in my head for more than two seconds at a time. It’s really rather pathetic.
In other news, I had my last NST this morning. Good times were had by all. Except maybe Evie who fell asleep about 5 or 10 minutes into the darned thing and kept her heart rate at a steady 120bpm the rest of the hour. Go figure. But all systems are go for tomorrow.
So here’s the drill: My c-section is scheduled for 12 noon (pacific time, yo) and I need to be down at the hospital by 10 am. We’ll probably leave here at 9:30 or so. Even so, I’ll try to throw up a post of some sort (something that probably says, “OH. MY. GOD.”) before we leave. I will be leaving the laptop in the van until I have a postpartum room all set up (along with the rest of my crap, of which I have lots), but I will have my cellphone on me. Which means two things, a) I will be able to check email, though it would be considerably more difficult to send email and b) I can twitter to my heart’s content. I can also conceivably “post to my blog” through flickr. Which is how I do the majority of my Wordless Sunday posts. And this will probably how the initial “announcement” is made. I’m trying to educate Kile on what media he is expected to take at what point throughout the day. I want video of the actual birth. But I want stills of her on the table and being brought to me. Somewhere in there, I want him to take a picture with my cellphone so that it can be sent to flickr and posted to the blog. WHEW.
So I guess my point here is that if you are interested in updates, keep an eye on Twitter, Flickr and eventually, the blog here. Once I do get settled in, I plan to fire up the laptop, post pictures to flickr in earnest and make a nice decent blog post. That probably won’t happen until evening sometime. Again, this is all pacific time, of course.
And, in case you don’t know, I am beyond thrilled at everyone’s interest and excitement in my big news. You all totally rock, you know that? I love each and every one of your comments. Your encouragement means more to me than you could possibly know.
I also have a little fun in store for you all. I decided to make a little contest out of how big you all think this baby will end up being. Harry was 7lbs 5oz at 40weeks 2days. Jackson was 6lbs even at 38weeks even. Liam was 4lbs 15oz at 37weeks even. Now, at my 35week ultrasound, the doctor thought that she weighed 5lbs 9oz. A pretty good estimate, but who knows, really.
Tomorrow I will be 37weeks 2days pregnant. What do you think her weight will be? The winner with the closest guess will be awarded Something Fabulous (that I haven’t figured out what it is yet). But you can rest assured it will be Fabulous. So whaddya say? And, in case of any “ties”, I will break it by having you all guess what TIME she will be born. Now, I know I said I’m scheduled 12pm, but we all know how these things go. I could get bumped because of an emergency or whatever. And I’m talking EXACT time. If two people guess 6lbs 2oz but one guesses 12:05 and one guesses 12:30 and she weighs 6lbs 2oz and is born at 12:25, the second person wins. Sound fair? Sound like a plan?
Let the guessing begin!
After some unforeseen delays and waiting around, Liam was born this afternoon at 2:00 on the nose, Pacific time of course. He was born with a lusty cry, much to everyone’s delight. And that lusty cry continued as they carted him off to the table (seen at right) to clean and examine.
He was small… IS small. 4 pounds, 15 ounces. :blink 18 1/2 inches long. And some BIG feet. So I know he’ll grow like a weed from here on out, just like his big brother. But oh so tiny right now. Which is another reason why the lusty cry was music to our ears.
He hasn’t had any trouble breathing so far, and it’s been a good six and a half hours since he was born. He scored 9 and 9 on his Apgar scores as well, so he is just nearly perfect! What am I saying?! He *is* perfect!
Our c-section was bumped back due to an emergency c-section that had to get in before us. They’ve had a LOT of c/s’s today, apparently. But the surgery couldn’t have gone better and was over, start to finish, in 30 minutes. Wow!
I’ve been doing great since, feeling pretty good (despite the expected soreness, etc). But this isn’t really about me now, is it? Naw, even *I* dont’ want to talk about myself. Because little Liam is the STAR.
Harry and my parents have been by to visit already and you see we got some pictures of the two together. He was overwhelmed, understandably, at first. Very nervous of the whole situation. Worried a bit, too, about me and the baby.
But he loves holding him and has a bazillion questions about him already. And I? Am so proud I could bust. Because I was finally able to give my son a sibling. And I absolutely can’t get enough of seeing both of them together!
Right now, we’re settling into the evening together. Breastfeeding might be a bit of an issue for a day or two. He’s just SO small and isn’t opening his mouth real wide. We’ve given him a little formula, simply because his blood sugar levels are so important with him being so small and a bit on the early side. But I’m getting a breastpump brought to me so I can at least give him mine, if not directly from the breast right off. I imagine in a day or so when he’s more with it, we’ll give it a good go. 
He’s just the sweetest thing ever. He hardly ever cries, only during diaper changes so far. Of course, I know that’s pretty standard with newborns. He snuffles around and opens his eyes quite a bit already. I could hold him for an eternity I think.
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